“The next day the carpenter sewed the mate up in canvas, along with some sheet-lead. The old man read the service in spite of the gale, and then he raised his hand.
“The men of the mate’s watch tilted the plank he was laying on, and the white bundle went to leeward with a heavy plunge.
“Just at that minute the long, hoarse cry of a penguin broke on our ears from the darkness to the s’uth’ard. That was all.”
Zach Green sat smoking, but said nothing. Gantline turned and noticed me. Then he spat his quid overboard, and, giving me the course for my watch, went slowly forward.
THE TREASURE OF TINIAN REEF
THE tropical sun shone fiercely on the beach of coral sand. The tall-trunked cocoanuts, with their bunchy, long-leaved tops, rustled softly in the trade-wind on the shore, and stood like bold sentinels, or a picket-line, for the serried ranks of thick jungle growth on the land behind them. The long, heavy roll of the Pacific heaved itself up, as if in defiance, as it rolled towards the land, mounting higher and higher upon itself, until the blue wall wavered an instant, then fell with a mighty roar into a waste of sparkling foam as it rolled over the barrier-reef and rushed towards the beach beyond.
Sometimes the seas would come in quick couples, and the deep thundering jar of their falling bodies could be heard clear back to Sunharon, where Sangaan lived in the pride of his manhood and a grass-thatched palace.
Northward from the reef, well off shore, lay a small schooner, rolling deep in the swell. Her mainsail was hauled flat aft, and she lay hove to, while a small white speck in the sea between her and the shore, growing rapidly larger every moment, told plainly to the curious native sitting on the beach in the shadow of a palm that a boat was soon to make a landing.
But Warto was not uneasy. He had seen boats land there before, and had once helped to carry some of the men ashore, where a large fire had been built and knives sharpened; but that was long ago, long before Mr. Easyman had come there and taught him how to take care of his soul as well as his huge brown body.
Still, memory made his eyes bright, and he involuntarily clutched a short spear with his right hand as he sat and watched the small boat near the surf.